Bulgy neck, impacted crop? Help please! (Pics added)

[annmarie]

Advice please! My hen Fatima has had a sort of bulgy looking neck for the past few days. I think I first noticed it Thursday night after she had been free ranging for a few hours. I thought perhaps this was her crop that was just very full from pigging out all afternoon, but it doesn't seem to be going down. She seems to be eating, drinking, and pooping normally. She isn't acting strangely in any way, but her neck still looks bulgy, and is maybe a bit worse. I'm not familiar with crop impaction, but from everything I've read here, the only oddity is that it sounds like her chest area would be bulgy, not her neck. As far as I can tell, her chest seems pretty normal. She is a big, heavily feathered barred rock, so maybe it's a little hard to tell on her. I've been treating her today as if she has a crop impaction, giving her olive oil and massaging her neck/chest area. I'm embarrased to admit, I don't entirely understand where her crop is.

I don't think I feel any unusually large lumps anywhere, but something must be going on because her neck looks a bit like a body builder. Can anyone help me? Would a picture help?

 

[CarriBrown]

A picture would help. An impacted crop will look sort of like a "beer belly". One thing you can do is seperate her tonight and only give her water, no food. If her crop is functioning normally, the crop will go down by morning.

 

[nnbreeder]

A pic would help greatly. Also when are you checking it? To see if it is emptying correctly you need to ck early morning like 4 or 5am.

 

[annmarie]

Thank you so much for your responses. I will go out right now and try to get a good picture of her. I've been checking her morning, noon, and night and it doesn't seem to change by the time of day. I'll be back shortly with a picture. I'm really not seeing the beer belly thing though, so now I'm really beginning to wonder!

 

[annmarie]

Okay, here are some pictures. Please let me know what you think. Impacted crop? If she were a teenager I'd think she has mono!

 

[CarriBrown]

That doesn't look like impacted crop to me. It looks like it's in her neck.

Strange... It's not bothering her though, huh? And she's still eating, drinking, pooping, laying, etc?

 

[annmarie]

I'm thinking it's not her crop either, based on what I've been reading. Yes, she's eating, drinking, and pooping normally so far, knock on wood. I'm stumped. I've been doing a little reading about fungal infections, so now I'm thinking about that possibility. Since she seems to be fine otherwise, I think I'll just keep an eye on her for now. If anyone else has any idea's, I'd love to hear them. I'll keep checking the post from time to time. Thanks to everyone who's replied so far.

 

[CarriBrown]

Is the area hot? Is the skin normal color, texture, etc? Geesh, part of me is thinking if she's acting normal, just keep an eye on her. Her eyes are bright, her comb and waddles are a nice color, she's alert and her feathers look great, so hopefully this is just some strange "thing".

 

[annmarie]

I'll have to check to see if her neck is hot or discolored. I'm guessing it's not hot since I've massaged her about 10 times today! She really seems fine otherwise, she just laid a lovely speckled egg! I'll keep an eye on it. In the meantime, I'm going to stop feeding her olive oil since I really don't think it's her crop! Thanks again!
Ann- Marie

 

[matter]

It sounds like this is something different, but we have a hen that's had what I think is a blocked esophagus. Her crop seems fine, but she must have a blockage just ahead of her crop. She's had it for around a week. It's pretty horrible. Her esophagus has expanded out to a diameter of maybe 1/2 inch and it's protruding out in a big half loop in front of her. She keeps her head back to accompany the hugely expanded organ.
Once it became obvious what had happened we've been giving her just liquids: water, pineapple juice, papaya juice, and occasionally yogurt. (the vet said the two juices would help dissolve things). She seems to be in stable condition, but she's still blocked up.

We're not really sure what to do. It seems to hard to massage out.
I hope I haven't worried you, this seems like a different thing, but just in case...